


bless this morning year

by Shaedan



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode: s15e20 Carry On Coda, Fix-It, Fluff, Hopeful melancholy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:34:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28460229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shaedan/pseuds/Shaedan
Summary: Cas just stared at him. “You defeated God. And you died from a fall?”“Hey, man, in my defense, there was a rusty nail. And! And vampires.”“That’s ridiculous, Dean.”“Screw you. It was heroic, that’s what it was.”or, that time-honoured spn fandom tradition of making the best of things
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Charlie Bradbury & Dean Winchester
Comments: 8
Kudos: 53





	bless this morning year

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the [eponymous song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFQc70rRaag) by Helios. Go give it a listen while you read.
> 
> All my love to [known-prequel-apologist](https://known-prequel-apologist.tumblr.com/) for being the best cheerleader, and for getting me into this mess in the first place. Also, I hate you.

“I wasn’t made for this. I was created to be a, a soldier, not a soul warden.”

“Warden, huh? Tell me again how this isn’t jail.”

The ravine was like nothing Dean had ever seen before. It ran for longer than he could see, a deep crack in the mountainside that exposed the gray rock inside, contrasted it against the deep green of the surrounding forest. The broad, lazy river that had carved it flowed past far, far down below their feet, the stillness of its surface belying the force of its current. Every so often, a stray ray of sunlight would catch in a ripple and produce a stunning flash of silver or blue.

This wasn’t a real place, Cas had explained. It was an amalgamation, generated from the memories, thoughts, and fantasies of the residents of this particular corner of Heaven. Theoretically, this forest, the ravine, the river—they would all continue on forever, as long as there were people to explore them.

As a rule, angels didn’t have very active imaginations, which had been one of the reasons for the carefully cordoned-off cubby holes of the past. But Jack had brought forward the idea of sourcing environments from the souls themselves, and from there, it had pretty much been smooth sailing. After all, it hadn’t been too different from building personal little Heavens out of specific memories, and the new generation of angels, guided by the older ones, had been eager to get to work. And there was plenty for them to do.

Cas had come the minute Dean said his name.

“Anywhere you want to go, I’ll take you,” Cas explained again with a long-suffering, angelic patience; just the slightest, wry twist to his mouth betrayed him. “I can’t promise you’ll enjoy it, though. Souls aren’t supposed to leave the afterlife.”

“Nah, I’m good,” Dean replied. “Still just… trying to wrap my head around everything.”

Cas’s voice only sounded like Jimmy Novak’s when Dean wasn’t paying attention. When he was, it wasn’t that it sounded strange—it was that it didn’t. It was undeniably just Cas. So much so that Dean couldn’t pinpoint what it was that was different about it, exactly, except that something was. It was going to drive him nuts if he kept thinking about it, but he couldn’t stop.

It was Cas’s real voice. The one he’d tried to talk to Dean with that very first time, the one that had blown up the lights and shattered the windows and nearly Dean’s eardrums, too. The one that had warned Pamela to turn back, before a glimpse of its owner seared her eyes clean out of her skull.

Size of the Chrysler building, Dean vaguely remembered something about. Zachariah’s haughty bristling about six wings and four faces. But whatever it was that let Cas and the other angels recognize each other no matter who they were wearing, it seemed degloved souls tapped into that, too, because Cas just looked like Cas. It was only the sheer weight his presence carried that let on that there was a lot more going on there than Dean could perceive, even now. It would come in time, Cas said.

For the first time, he was seeing Cas, like, really seeing him. Not filtered through dull human senses, through the containment measure of a vessel, through the inherent limitations of existing in physical space on Earth. Just straight Cas, no hazmat suits necessary.

Dean didn’t have eyeballs for Cas to burn out, no eardrums for him to burst. He was still kind of a lot.

But he was Cas. The same Cas. And that was all that mattered.

“I think you’ll do great,” Dean said, sitting up a little straighter. The movement dislodged a rush of pebbles, clattering against the cliffside on their way down. Far, far below his feet, too far down to hear the splash when the rocks hit, the river kept murmuring past, moving hundreds of tons of water every second, despite appearing almost perfectly still. If he fell, Cas would catch him. “With this whole soul warden thing.”

“Well, if I’ve learned anything this very hectic decade of my life,” Cas said dryly, “it’s how to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances.”

“You were due a career change, man. What, fourteen billion years and change as a soldier?”

“And change,” Cas agreed placidly.

Dean’s mouth had kind of spit out the age thing without consulting his brain, which now was spinning out completely, trying to picture that the guy sitting next to him was, well. That old. The age of the freaking universe. He’d been aware of it for as long as they’d known each other, of course. It kinda came free with the whole angel thing. But he hadn’t thought about it, really thought about it, until just now. Now that he could see Cas like he actually was.

“Dean?”

“I’m good. Just.” He shook his head. “Just kinda spaced out for a sec.”

Cas accepted that. His eyes shifted away, back to stare out over the ravine.

“I know at that point, I’d be looking to straight-up retire,” Dean said, and thought he did a pretty good job matching the light tone from earlier, before he gave himself an existential crisis with information he already knew. When he was already dead, and the whole existential ship had kind of already sailed.

Cas rolled his shoulders, stretching. Behind them, his wings shifted with the motion; the displaced air ruffled Dean’s hair. “Angels don’t retire, Dean.”

“Oh, come on, not even you? If anyone’s put in the work to deserve it, it’s you.”

“That’s… kind of you to say.”

With his eyes closed, Cas turned his face up toward the sun. His wings moved behind them, splaying to take in the warmth, too. The soft edge of a feather brushed against the small of Dean’s back and sent a zing of electricity sparking through him.

Angels touching bare souls did weird things. It was like a punch to the gut, but in a good way. Dean still couldn’t recall the details of how Cas had carried him up from Hell, but he understood why he’d come with, if this had been what it’d felt like. As a living human, angels had posed an existential threat to him and his lizard brain had known it. Like this? He knew in his bones that they were there to protect him. Not even the most vindictive angel would ever hurt a soul in their care. It just wasn’t in their programming.

And, also, it was Cas. Cas always had his back.

Cas belonged here. He fit, in a way he never had on Earth, even after he’d stopped exploding light bulbs wherever he went, acquired a taste for PB&J, and watched ungodly amounts of television. The way the sunlight played over him just worked—him and the light, they were made of the same stuff. It was meant to shine on him and he was meant to be shone upon. And… he was beautiful, and Dean—

Dean looked away. “Is it good to be back?” he asked, studying the scene below them. On the other side of the ravine, a deer had come down to the water to drink. Cas dominated his peripheral vision.

“In Heaven?” Cas didn’t open his eyes. “With all the things I’d done… I never thought I’d return.”

“Yeah, well, there’s no place like home, is there.”

“This hasn’t been home in years,” Cas said wistfully. “I’d much rather—”

He blinked his eyes back open and turned to Dean, and Dean was drawn to his gaze like a magnet. _Devastatingly handsome_ , his own voice echoed back to him, and he swallowed.

“I regret that you didn’t get to live,” Cas said. He was so bright and terrible and old and sad. Dean almost couldn’t understand what it’d been like not to be able to see that. And yet, he was just himself, too. He’d always been _both_. “You should’ve.”

Dean shook his head. “That goes for both of us, I think.”

“Jack brought me back from the Empty and restored me. You’re stuck in Heaven.”

“No, no I’m not. You promised to be my personal taxi service, remember?”

That drew a chuckle, a shift in his wings.

“Your vessel is still gone, so, I mean on that point, it’s not like you can go home any more than I can.”

“I could find a new one,” Cas pointed out.

“Do you want to?”

“No.”

They were quiet for a moment, looking at each other.

Around them, the forest of Heaven sang with life.

* * *

After getting into the Impala and leaving Bobby to his nice view and beer cooler, Dean had only driven for a short while before pulling over. The sounds of the wilderness around him had filtered in slow, once he’d killed the engine: birds singing in the treetops, a raven calling out far away. Somewhere, a stream, babbling in a bright, carefree voice. Dean had put his hands together and cleared his throat, a crease appearing between his eyebrows as he closed his eyes.

“Cas,” he’d said. “You got your ears on?”

The heavy sound of angel wings broke his heart. Cas was standing there, up ahead on the dusty gravel road, in his trenchcoat and suit and blue, off-kilter tie. He looked sad, and tired, and a little afraid.

But it was him.

Dean almost tripped on his way out of the car.

“Cas! Cas—you’re okay.” An incredulous, choked noise that was half laughter, half something else, bubbled up into Dean’s throat, past his lips, as he skidded to a stop just in front of Cas. It was too unreal to get any closer. “You’re okay! Is it. It’s really you, right?”

Cas lifted his arms and dropped them right back down again with the sound of fabric slapping into fabric. “It’s really me,” he confirmed, something wary in his tone, the set of his mouth. “Jack, he brought me back.”

The relief had a half-life measured in seconds.

“What the hell kind of move was that you just pulled?” Dean demanded.

Cas blinked.

“It’s exactly the kind of stupid crap we keep doing and not once has it not bit us in the ass! What the hell were you thinking?”

The wariness evaporated, Cas’s hackles rising in its place. “I was thinking that I didn’t want you to die,” he snapped back.

“Yeah, because you dying instead was so much better.”

“As a matter of fact, it was!”

Cas didn’t expect him to go in for a hug, so it was like slamming into a brick wall. Dean held on anyway. And if hugging him was like colliding with a wall, kissing him? It was like kissing a live wire. But Dean held on anyway.

“You dumbass,” Dean said. “You were never gonna say anything, were you?”

Cas looked dumbstruck. “Dean?”

“Gotta hand it to you, buddy. Hell of a speech.” Bubbles were bursting in the hollow of Dean’s throat, equal parts nerves and joy. He’d done a lot of thinking, these last few weeks after they’d saved the world and Cas had still been dead. Or, well. He’d done no thinking at all, rather. The whole, sorry story had kind of cut through all of his thoughts, all the way down into the wriggling, raw, vulnerable thing hiding behind them. That didn’t mean he wasn’t kind of freaking out, still. “Were you really gonna follow it up with staying in Heaven forever and letting me think you were dead?”

“I.”

As a rule, Cas wasn’t very emotive. Dean had seen him laugh exactly once. Something about him and his vessel not being connected along all sets of wires, Dean had figured a long time ago. Just because his emotions weren’t super accessible didn’t mean he didn’t have them, though, and sussing them out wasn’t all that hard. But right now?

Cas’s face was trying to express a thousand different things at once, like he had no idea what he was feeling, or like he was feeling every single emotion at the same time. “You kissed me.”

Heat rushed into Dean’s cheeks, like he was some sort of goddamn teenage girl with a crush. “Yeah,” he said gruffly. “What, am I out of practice?”

The live wire sparked through him all the way down into his toes. It felt like his heart was going to burst out of his chest.

“I thought,” Cas murmured, “I thought you…”

“So we’re both idiots,” Dean said.

Cas chuckled in little puffs of warm air against Dean’s face. “I guess we are.”

“I’m still not done with you,” Dean warned.

Cas’s wings came up around them. They were just hints of shadow in the corner of Dean’s eye, the suggestion of something with substance and weight, an aura of power that thrummed in his chest. But as long as he didn’t look directly at them, there were feathers.

“ _I’m_ not done with _you_ ,” Cas said. “What are you doing here so soon?”

Dean winced. “I tripped?”

Cas just stared at him. “You defeated God. And you died from a fall?”

“Hey, man, in my defense, there was a rusty nail. And! And vampires.”

“That’s ridiculous, Dean.”

“Screw you. It was heroic, that’s what it was.”

They could hold it for about half a second. Then they were both smiling. Like dorks.

Their foreheads knocked together when Dean looked down, and that. That.

“How’d Jack get you back?” Dean asked and tried to pull back a little. Cas’s hand tightened on his upper arm. “I thought the Empty was kinda like a no-God-allowed zone.”

“Chuck had no influence there, but Jack isn’t him,” Cas explained. “He has the power of both the Darkness and the Light, and his own as an archangel nephilim to boot. He put the Shadow back to sleep in exchange for my essence. Honestly, I think it was just happy to be done with me.”

“And he topped up your grace, too, looks like,” Dean said, leaning back and going cross-eyed in an effort to glance at Cas’s wings. They crowded closer to Cas’s shoulders in response, hiding, almost.

Cas grabbed his forearm. “Stop that.”

“What? ‘S not like I have eyes for you to blind anymore.”

“No, but you’re still going to hurt yourself if you push too hard.”

“Listen, dude, not to be a downer,” Dean said and stepped back to look Cas—who looked just like his same old self, especially when he gave Dean that long-suffering look, yes, that was the one—up and down, “but you’re kinda not living up to the hype. You’re not in a vessel now, right?”

Cas puffed up a little at the insult, and it was adorable. “My vessel was destroyed by the Shadow. This is my true form.”

“Nah. Can’t really see it. This what’s s’posed to burn out my eyes? Really? Well,” he said, considering. “Maybe from dork overload…”

Cas rolled his eyes. “Dean.”

“Hey,” Dean said, looking around. “Who else made it?”

Despite what Bobby had said about people being just “over yonder,” the Roadhouse seemed to be surrounded by miles and miles and miles of just forest. There was nothing but trees and this inexplicably well-maintained gravel road, meandering through the wilderness. It led, as far as Dean could tell, to nowhere. At the same time, it seemed to go on forever. Granted, he hadn’t been driving along it for very long, but while it had never doubled back on itself or cheated in some other way, Dean still got the sense that if he started Baby back up, he’d run into Bobby again if he just went over that hilltop.

Freaky, kind of. But also kind of nice.

“Everyone,” Cas said. “Do you want to see them?”

Dean considered. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I do.”

The gravel crunched under their feet as they walked back to Baby, shoulder to shoulder.

“Hey,” Dean checked, “you can fly again now, right?”

Cas nodded. Dean grinned and slapped him on the back; Cas stumbled forward a few steps, like he’d miscalculated how much—little—of a punch Dean packed now. Dean almost laughed at him, at the bewildered look on his face.

“I’m happy for you, man. I know you missed it.”

A smile crinkled the corners of Cas’s eyes. “I did,” he admitted, all quiet and soft.

Baby’s doors slammed shut with that familiar, double creak and click, and she purred to life under Dean’s hands. He smiled at her, but then a thought struck him. “Sure you wanna just ride shotgun, then?”

Cas was still smiling, looking at Dean. “I’m right where I wanna be,” he said, and okay. Okay. That sure was something Cas could say, to Dean, right here. Right now.

“Oh. Cool.”

Dean had been wrong. The Roadhouse wasn’t just over the hill. They drove and drove and drove, and there was still just forest.  
His fucking heart was going to burst out of his chest. He was sitting in Baby with his music streaming from the speakers—Cas next to him, Cas alive and well, Cas looking out the window with a quiet, content expression on his face. If Dean concentrated on that, it was almost like normal. Like a normal, really good day. Like they were driving home from a hunt that had gone well, and Cas was happy, and everything was okay.

Except, well. Dean could reach across and take Cas’s hand. And it wouldn’t be weird. And Cas would let him. Cas would like it.

Dean couldn’t do it, but he also kinda could. You know. Theoretically.

“I can’t believe you were gonna let me think you were dead,” he said again instead.

Cas’s shoulders stiffened. “I thought,” he said, still looking out the window, “it was better that way.”

Which might’ve been one of the worst things Dean had ever been told. Holy shit. “I prayed to you, man. Every single day.”

“You didn’t think I could hear it. I tried not to listen.”

“You can do that?”

“No.”

Dean’s stomach dropped to his toes. “And you still didn’t come?”

Cas crumpled a little in his seat. “I was afraid,” he said quietly. “I was afraid of what your reaction would be. Of what you would say.”

Dean stopped the car.

“Dean, what are you— Oh.”

“Dude,” Dean said, laughter quivering on the exhale, “kissing you’s like making out with a power cable, holy shit.”

“It’s, it’s because you don’t have a body anymore,” Cas tried to explain, which was so not what Dean was going for, here. “Angels touching bare souls—“

Whatever he said, his lips were plush and soft underneath Dean’s, the warmth and wet of his mouth electric. His stubble scraped against Dean’s cheek as they shifted against each other, as Dean climbed closer, and it was dizzying. It was perfect.

It was the best Dean had felt in a long-ass time.

“You stupid son of a bitch,” he said. “Of course you can have me. Do you know what a goddamn idiot you are?”

Cas’s eyes fluttered open. “I’m beginning to get the idea, yes.”

“Good.”

Dean was. He was straddling Cas’s lap. Just, like. Fully. He couldn’t sit up straight because if he did, his head would hit the ceiling. Because he was practically on top of Cas.

Cas—pupils blown wide, lips kiss-pink, angel of the frickin’ Lord, amen—stared up at him like he was nothing short of a miracle.

Dean cleared his throat and shifted away, back into the driver’s seat. “So does this road just go on forever or what?”

Cas blinked. “It’s, uh.” He didn’t actually have vocal chords right now. He had no right to sound like that. “It takes you where you want to go.”

“Well, I wanna go to the Roadhouse. Are we at the Roadhouse?”

“Where you really want to go,” Cas said. “Not just what you say you want. Those two are sometimes very different, I’ve learned.”

Dean got the niggling feeling Cas was not using the general pronoun, but he still sounded so happy, so. That was maybe all right.

“Okay. Roadhouse. Rooooadhouse. Come on, brain, take us to the Roadhouse.”

This time, their destination _was_ just over the next hill. And there were other cars parked in front, now, and the door to one of them was opening, slamming shut. Dean caught a glimpse of red hair, glinting in the sun.

As they rolled into the parking lot, Charlie broke out into the biggest grin Dean had ever seen.

She ran out in front of the car, waving her arms, like there was some way for him not to spot her. Muffled through Baby’s chassis, the rumble of her engine, just the faintest hint of her voice called, “Dean!”

And damn if that didn’t hit like a truck. Because this was the real Charlie, his Charlie, and it’d been _years_.

Dean pulled into an empty spot and had barely turned the key to kill the engine before he was out the door. Charlie was still standing in the middle of the parking lot, just off to the side of Baby’s tire marks in the gravel, grinning like a loon.

“Your highness!” Dean said, and let out a soft noise of surprise as Charlie’s bird-boned body collided with his.

“’Sup, bitches,” Charlie said into his collarbone.

Cas’s footsteps crunched up behind them, but she didn’t let go.

Dean wrapped his arms around her shoulders, resting his cheek against her hair, and closed his eyes. They stood like that for a while, gently swaying back and forth.

When Charlie stepped back, she was a little misty-eyed, but she was smiling again. She sniffled and wiped at her eye with a finger, shaking her head. “Hey.”

“Hey, yourself,” Dean said, barely, past the lump in his throat.

She looked nothing like the last time he’d seen her. There was no trace of that horrible stomach wound, no trace of any injuries at all. She looked whole and healthy and happy and strong, the curls of her bob bouncing around her ears as she sucked in a breath and turned toward Cas. “And Cas!”

“Hello, Charlie.”

It was Cas’s turn to let out a small “oomph”, Charlie attacking him next. Like the last time they’d met, he looked a little bewildered at the hug, but not as much, and his hand lowered to pat her on the back. He seemed almost as pleased as Charlie, something warm and fond in his expression.

“It’s good to see you again,” Cas said as Charlie stepped back. “You look well.”

“Well, duh,” Charlie said and rolled her eyes. “We’re in Heaven, dude.”

“Even so.”

“Speaking of—what are you guys doing here? Well, I mean, I know the general mechanism by which people end up here, but being dead kinda puts you out of the loop a bit and it’s sort of driving me crazy, so. What’s going on?”

“Oh, you know,” Dean said and shrugged. “Deposing God, killing Death, ending destiny. The usual crap.”

“Wait.” Charlie looked around, taking in their surroundings: the Roadhouse, the trees, the distant, snow-capped mountains. “That’s why everything’s different now!” She snapped her fingers. “I should’ve known it was you guys. But where’s Sam?”

“Sam’s still alive,” Dean said. “And if he doesn’t stay that way for a very long time, I’m going to kill him.”

Charlie nodded seriously. “Fair.”

“Ya idjits coming or not?” Bobby called. He’d stuck his head out the front door of the Roadhouse, a bottle dangling from one hand.

“We will start without you,” a fainter voice threatened from inside. “Beer’s getting warm!”

Dean stood up. At his expression, Cas’s eyes crinkled again. “Ellen?”

“You know them?” Charlie said, tucking herself against his side, wide-eyed. “Okay, so you’re officially my bodyguard now. I’m so awkward at social gatherings where I don’t know anyone, it’s the worst.”

“I— Yeah,” Dean said. His cheeks hurt. “C’mon, they don’t bite, promise.”

Bobby disappeared back inside as the three of them started making their way over. Dean pushed the door open and Charlie slipped inside under his arm, staring.

Ellen, standing behind the bar, lifted her beer in a salute. Jo was sitting in front of her, and Bobby was getting into the seat next to Jo. “About time you showed, Winchester.”

“Ellen! Jo!”

Jo matched Dean’s grin as he swept her up into a hug. When they separated, Ellen was smiling at them, too, despite her gruff tone.

“Oh, wow,” Dean said, chuckling a little at himself, “it is so good to see you guys again.”

Ellen popped open a beer, a soft _pssht_ noise as the air escaped, and pushed it across the counter toward Dean.

“I can’t believe we just missed you the last time you were up here,” Jo complained.

Dean snapped his fingers. “Right, where’s Ash?”

“Busy beaver, that one,” Ellen said. “No idea what he's up to or where he is, but he’ll turn up at some point. He always does.”

Jo hid a laugh in her drink, patting the stool next to her. Dean sat down.

Bobby tilted his beer forward and said, eyes bright, “Gonna introduce your friend?”

Cas and Charlie were still over by the entrance. When Bobby drew all the attention to Charlie, she froze for a moment, panic shining in her eyes, before she gave an awkward little wave. “Um. Hi.”

“Oh, that’s right, you guys never met.” Dean sprang to his feet and went over to Charlie. She glanced up at him in gratitude. And, yeah, he’d kinda failed his duties as bodyguard. He’d make up for it now, though. “Everyone, this is Charlie Bradbury, the best damn hacker the world’s ever seen. Helped us save the world more times than I can count.”

“What do you mean, ‘helped’?” Charlie sniped back. “I was the muscle of the whole damn operation, as I recall.”

“Sounds familiar,” Jo drawled. When Dean glowered at her, she winked.

“What kind of world-ending did you get saddled with, then, kid?” Ellen said.

“Goo monsters! From the dawn of time, with a taste for human flesh.”

“Biblical Apocalypse,” Jo said.

“Old school. Nice.”

They sat at the bar. Dean nabbed his beer from his old spot, while Ellen passed Charlie a fresh one.

“Come on, Cas, don’t be shy,” Ellen said.

Cas was still standing by the wall in the back, just to the side of the entrance, watching them. His eyes flicked over to Ellen as she spoke.

“You back in the good graces of the powers that be or what’s going on? Thought you were banned from upstairs for life.”

“His adoptive son’s the new God,” Bobby said.

Ellen, Jo, and Charlie all stared at him. And then Cas, who shrugged. And then Dean.

Dean put up his hands. “Listen, Charlie, I told you. The usual crap.”

“I know your life’s kinda insane,” Jo said, “but that is not ‘the usual crap.’”

“His name’s Jack, all right? He’s the son of Satan. Real sweet kid. Just turned three.”

You could hear a pin drop. Ellen was the first to shake her head, and took a swig of her beer. Bobby looked pleased as punch to have been the only one in the know.

“Your mom says hi by the way,” Bobby said. “Couldn’t make it just yet, but she wants you to swing by as soon as you can.”

“Is that why everything’s… different?” Jo asked, carefully. “’Cause I can’t really remember, but I know it wasn’t…” She trailed off. “Like this. Before.”

“Jack and him,” Dean said, pointing at Cas with his thumb.

“We made some changes,” Cas said. “I hope the transition wasn’t too difficult.”

Jo shook her head. “No, no, it’s just… Um. Wow.”

“Yeah,” Dean said and took a swig of his beer.

Charlie shifted next to him, turning toward him with a furrow between her brows. “Okay, wait, so if all this—“ She made a sweeping gesture at their surroundings, presumably indicating more than just the cool, dark interior of the Roadhouse. “—was you guys, can I ask: what’s up with the trees? Do they just go on forever? ‘Cause, gotta be honest—not really a country gal. I kinda need a stable Internet connection to, you know. Live.”

“It doesn’t go on forever if you don’t want it to,” Cas said. “If you go far enough, you’ll find something new.”

“So, Heaven’s, like, procedurally generated now?” Charlie said, delighted. “Oh man. No Man’s Sky could _never_.”

Cas tilted his head at her, puzzled, but didn’t comment. He seemed resigned to the fact that she wasn’t going to start making sense any time soon.

“Does that mean I can go see anything if I just think about it?”

“Ah, no,” Cas said. “It’s built by the collective.”

“So if all of us just imagine Disneyland hard enough, I’ll finally get to go?”

“That’s not—“

Charlie punched Dean’s arm. “You guys really made the Republic of Heaven, huh?”

In the background, Cas just fully gave up, and slumped back against the wall again. But there was a hint of a smile playing at the corner of his mouth as he watched them.

“Yeah, I…” Dean chuckled a little. “I guess we did.”

“Well, I approve,” Charlie said with gusto. “You know, while it was happening, I didn’t mind reliving Charlie Bradbury’s greatest hits over and over again, but in hindsight? Kind of terrifying! This is much better.”

Dean rubbed his neck. “Yeah, you should be thanking Cas for that.”

“I am! But now I’m thanking you!” Charlie was beaming. “Gotta say, dude, obviously not thrilled about the whole you being dead thing, but Heaven was getting kinda boring without you.”

“Amen to that,” Bobby said and raised his bottle. “Cas, get your ass over here.”

“To happy endings,” Ellen said. “Wherever we can find them.”

“To new beginnings!” Jo said.

“To new beginnings,” they all chorused.

Six bottles came together with a clink.

* * *

“Do _you_ want to?” Cas said.

Dean blinked. “What?”

“Retire.”

“Dude, I think I kinda have to. What kind of Heaven would it be if there were monsters?”

Cas inclined his head. “True.”

“I, I dunno.” Dean’s hands clenched against the damp earth underneath him. He looked away, staring out at the ravine. A flock of birds burst from the treetops on the other side, a couple dozen graceful shadows against the white, fluffy clouds, wheeling through the air and singing for joy. Past them, the blue sky went on forever. “I dunno what I wanna do. But I’ve got time, right?”

“You’ve got all of eternity,” Cas said.

“Yeah, not helping with the existential crisis, man.”

“Sorry.”

This kind of death, Dean supposed, wasn’t so bad. When it wasn’t the end. Not by a long shot. And not really a beginning, either, the way it had been in Hell. It was just… It just was.

The river flowed past them, quiet, occasional swirls on the surface the sole hint to the force it wielded. As time went by, the ravine would only get deeper. And the river would keep flowing, out into the world with an unknown end, on and on.

“Is this what it’s like?” Dean said.

“What what is like?”

“Living forever. Is this—“ He gestured to the river below them, Heaven at large. “—what it feels like?”

Cas mulled it over for a moment. “I’m not sure if I understand precisely what you mean,” he said, “but I think so.”

Dean shook his head again. Not at Cas. Just in general. “It’s. Kind of a lot.”

“Well, it’s like you said. You’ve got time. That’s what Heaven is.”

“Time, good friends, handsome angels?” Cas honest to God blushed, and hell yeah, it had been so worth it, spending the last ten minutes hyping himself up for that. “Doesn’t sound so bad.”

For every kiss, that lightning storm feeling inside Dean’s chest faded a little bit more. He didn’t know if he missed it or not, but it wasn’t like he was going to stop kissing Cas. He wasn’t ever going to stop doing that.

“Yeah,” he murmured, a thumb at Cas’s bottom lip. Cas’s eyes were blue, blue, blue with joy and warmth and affection. “Not too shabby at all.”

**Author's Note:**

> Just, like, as a general note: I’m not thrilled about this ending, either. That’s why I tried to make the best of it. Also, there may or may not be a chapter two in the works. A side B, if you will. We’ll see.
> 
> Happy New Year from Sweden! Let’s hope 2021 is a bit gentler to us all. If you want to hear me ramble about all sorts of stuff, including SPN, you can find my personal blog at [rackartyg](https://rackartyg.tumblr.com/). My pure SPN-blog is [winchester-dyke](https://winchester-dyke.tumblr.com/) and if, for some reason, you use Twitter, my Twitter handle is [7arcticsheep](https://twitter.com/7arcticsheep/). I do occasionally post there. Sometimes.
> 
> Comments and kudos are my daily bread and butter. If you enjoyed the story and want to leave a comment but don’t quite know what to say, please write ‘BANANA’ in all caps. I’ll know what you mean. Until next time!


End file.
